The Howard County Fire Department made another unscheduled trip to my house a couple of weeks ago while I was at the LCY event.  The last time they were there, our new black cat had gotten himself high up in a tree and couldn't figure out how to get down.  He was so high that we didn't have a ladder that got more than a third of the way up to where George was meowing. So we put the fire fighters to good use by having them rescue our cat out of a tree.  How cliche!

This time, things were no less comical.  Our nanny, Leslie, had just run outside to get something out of the car when she heard the door close behind her.  Thinking nothing of it, she got the stuff from her car and went to go back into the house.  Unfortunately, when she went to open the door, the knob wouldn't turn.  Staring back at here from the other side of the glass window was Caden, the 2 year old.  Somehow, he had locked the door and locked out Leslie.  No problem, she'll just try the sliding glass door.  That's almost always unlocked.  Survey says.....XXX!  By now, Leslie is totally freaking because the 2 year old she is in charge of is in the house by himself.  He isn't crying, except for when he gets his arms stuck in his coat that he is trying to take off.

So Leslie tries everything she can to get into the house, but has no luck.  So she calls the high school to have Craig sent home immediately to deal with an emergency.  So he gets home and tries the code to get into the garage door.  No luck.  By this time, the Fire Department has shown up after receiving a frantic call from Leslie.  Thinking he has the code wrong, he calls Colette and asks her what it is.  While he's asking her, she hears a bunch of people in the background.  "Yeah, that's the fire department" was what he said in a calm voice.  Of course, that totally freaked Colette out and she calls me to make sure she had the code right. Of course, I was talking with the Ytria folks about their product line.  They certainly got a chuckle out of it. Wouldn't have mattered what the code was because the battery on the remote had died!  So she calls me back to ask me what she should tell them to break to get into the house.

As I am going through my mental list of how much my new windows cost to replace, she gets the good news that the fire department was able to jimmy the front door open without damaging anything.  Leslie rushed into the house only to find that Caden had curled up on the floor and gone to sleep while watching a Baby Einstein DVD. So much for him being totally freaked out.

In the end, the only thing damaged was Leslie's psyche.  Hopefully, that will be the last time something like this happen, but I am not holding my breath.